Resurrection (Shades)
by Venomis
Summary: After years of imprisonment, Phobos escapes from a facility, robbed from her memories and owning deadly powers. When the bulletproof Luke Cage is murdered, she goes to Harlem to avenge him. Phobos, talented in bringing up the fears and trauma's of others, comes face to face with Cage's murderer. When his biggest fear turns out to be her own death, her whole world is crumbling down.
1. Red Dress

_Ten years before..._

Hernan swallowed when the music started to play. The tones of the piano caused goose bumps on his arms. Step by step she came closer. Her ivory dress shone in the light of the sun, even though it looked dull compared to her shining smile and sparkling eyes.

Still he found it hard to believe he was the source of her joy. Before this happiness had filled her, he'd caused her a ton of pain that still made his cheeks burn in shame. Nevertheless she walked up to him now, colorful flowers in her hand. She'd forgiven all the horrible things he'd done to her. Even her father had done so, who held her arm now and was about to give his most valuable treasure to him.

Hernan held out his hand to help her on the small stairs when she was only a few steps away. He'd thought it was impossible, but she looked more beautiful than ever. Her eyes were surrounded by dark make-up, and she'd put up her hair and decorated it with flowers. She looked so innocent, like she'd always done.

Such a sharp contrast to him.

But she brought out the best in him. She'd always done that and he believed she always would. He needed her to keep him from slipping into that dark hole again, into that place where'd roamed for so many years. Looking for a place where he fitted in, looking for someone who cared about him.

She had given him a home. Day after day, for three years now.

He loved her like he'd never loved anyone and he would do everything in his might to make her happy.

Their eyes met. A warm feeling filled his chest and he stretched his fingers even further. Finally she touched him. He wanted to pull her close, to touch her silky skin, to kiss her full lips.

But none of that happened.

There wasn't a protocol that prohibited him from doing so, but suddenly there was a dark purple fog surrounding them. People clapped their hands and cheered, probably thinking this was some kind of special effect.

It wasn't, unless Norah had wanted to surprise him. The somewhat confused look in her eyes however proved the opposite.

Three shapes loomed in the fog. Before Hernan understood what was happening, Norah stumbled forward. With enormous eyes she stared at him, lost, her quivering lips mumbling his name. With shaking hands she touched for her belly. Something sharp and bloody stuck out of it, on three spots her wedding dress was destroyed.

It felt like Hernan's brain froze. For a moment he couldn't move. In shock he stared at the man who stood behind her. A sinister grin was drawn on his young face, a face that he would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Then he tore himself out of his dismay and caught Norah. Her white dress was coloring red around her stomach. With fingers that felt sticky with blood, she caressed his face. Fear was reflecting in her eyes.

"Please Hernan," she whispered, crying. "Don't let me go, my love. Never let me go."

Hernan got the feeling the air he breathed was poisoned. He couldn't breathe. Dark spots crept into his field of vision. Somewhere far away he heard people scream hysterically, but it felt like Norah and he were inside a bubble, separated from the others.

Where nobody could help him, and where nobody could take her away from him.

Still Death came, quickly and inexorable.

The warmth of her hand disappeared from his cheek when she lowered her arm. The tears that clouded his eyes took away the sight on her face. Frantically he rubbed them away.

"Norah!" he yelled, hovering over his bride. "Norah!"

She stared past him, her eyes stripped off the joy that had made them shimmer a while ago. Hernan took her in his arms, rocked her softly. All of this made no sense... no fucking sense. All he could do was cry and scream and holding her close, hoping he would awake from this nightmare. Whispering sweet words he kissed her lips, wishing his love for her would magically bring her back to life.

But her body kept feeling heavy, and her skin became cold. Even though it was high summer, thick snow flakes swirled down, giving him hope that all of this was a hallucination, an illusion.

"She's gone," Darius' raspy voice sounded behind him. He felt the hand of his best man on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry, man."


	2. The Escape

_The present_

The alarm cut through her ears. Phobos cringed, she couldn't remember she'd heard such a shrill noise before. Not that that meant anything. There were many thing she didn't remember. Her age, her youth, how life was outside this facility. But there was life, of that she was sure. That was the reason why they were training, day after day. She carried out assignments to train her mental gifts, made sure her stamina and concentration were excellent and increased her knowledge about the martial arts that were educated here. They turned her into a super soldier, she believed. But how she'd ended up here and who she'd been before, she did not know. None of them did.

Phobos looked once more through the room, more mechanic than that she was really afraid to forget something. She had no possessions. When she heard footsteps in the hallway, she turned around and left the room that had felt both as a prison and a safe haven.

"You're ready?" Erebus asked. His glance – which was only warm when he looked at her – wandered across her face.

She nodded, a bit nervous.

They were really doing this. There was no way back.

Last time things had gone terribly wrong and if they failed this time, there was a fat chance she would lose her memories again. Or worse. But she trusted Erebus, just like her two other friends.

 _But you trusted Morpheus too,_ a vicious voice whispered to her. She pushed away the thought. This wasn't the moment to doubt her partners. She needed her concentration. She nodded to Erebus while rushing through the long corridor. Psamathe walked ahead of them. She stood still in front of Athena's cell, aiming her hand at the door. Sand streamed out of her fingers, right into the keyhole, forming a key. With a click the door opened.

Athena was ready to leave. The black-haired girl smiled rarely, but she made an exception for this night. The four of them ran ahead, to where the entrance of the complex had to be, according to Erebus' information. After a dozen steps the first guards showed up. Tornado's of sand shot from Psamathe's hands, blinding the men and women. Of course they were equipped with all kinds of high-tech gadgets, but Psamathe kept them at least busy for a while, giving Athena the chance to stroke her tattoos. The snake and panther that had been depicted on her shoulder came to life. Roaring and hissing they went for their attackers.

Phobos ran past them, with Erebus on her tail. Just as Athena and Psamathe were a unity during their fight, so were Phobos and Erebus. Phobos laid her hand on the shoulder of one of the guards, stared into his light irises and closed her eyes. Power streamed into her body immediately. An image revealed itself; burning flames all around them, a ceiling that roared and cracked and thick smoke that crept into her lungs and threatened to suffocate her.

Phobos let go of the image. It only disappeared before her eyes; her screaming opponent was still stuck in the illusion of a burning house, his biggest fear. Phobos let go of his shoulder. The shadow of her partner flashed around her, almost invisible, while choking everyone who came too close to her with a well-placed blow in the throat. He made sure her concentration wasn't broken.

The four of them fought their way to the exit.

Phobos could almost smell her freedom.

And then they passed the last cell. There he stood, right in front of the glass door, taking in the spectacle with a cool glance. Phobos felt her blood boil when he caught her glance. She suppressed the urge to give him the middle finger and kept walking.

"Phobos..." Psamathe called her name hesitated.

"No," Phobos snapped.

"But we need him..."

"No!" she repeated, snarling. "We'll be fine without him."

She felt his eyes burning in her back. Oh, how many times she'd looked into those eyes. First with longing, later with disgust. Full of love and full of hate.

"Norah..." his melodic voice sounded. "I can return your memories."

Phobos froze at the sound of that name.

 _Is that who I really am?_ She shook her head. She wasn't that stupid; she wouldn't fall for such an obvious act. He was messing with her head, like he'd always done.

With a grimace she moved on, preparing herself for the next group of guards. "He stays here!" she yelled over her shoulder. "Let him rot away."

"And the others?" Psamathe asked. "I can free them now?"

Phobos exchanged a look with Erebus and nodded. For the last time her attention slid to Morpheus. From the bottom of her heart she wished to see his pretty but treacherous face never again. Then her fingers laced with Erebus' and he pulled her into the shadows of the men that ran towards them. Both of them blended into the darkness, no longer physical present in the building.


	3. The Void

There weren't many occasions where Shades took off his sunglasses. Seeing Cage's lifeless body however absolutely was one. He'd moved heaven and earth, and put aside a significant amount of Mariah's money, but he'd managed to buy a few adamantium bullets. They were so sharp and so hot when they were fired that even Cage's bulletproof skin could be penetrated with them.

Shades smiled

Finally.

 _Finally._

His little moment of euphoria watered down when he noticed someone was staring at him. He put on his shades and turned to the girl, who waited on her reward with a pale face. In exchange for a humble sum of money she'd sweet-talked Cage and taken him to this remote place as her "date".

Shades reached for his inside pocket and handed her the envelop. With trembling fingers she took it from him.

 _Too bad,_ he thought, internally sighing. As soon as she turned around, he pulled his gun out of his holster and shot her through the head. He didn't like to gun down such a pretty young thing, but she should have known how this would end. To achieve important results, sacrifices had to be made. And risks had to be taken, but as little as possible. Someone who had already shaking hands, would suffer from guilt later.

It was better this way.

Not everybody was made to kill.

But he was.

He was forced to become a killer, he always told himself, but deep down he knew that wasn't true. There had always been a darkness inside him, one that could have been suppressed by only one person. And the moment she was gone, he'd completely surrendered himself to it.

He turned to the body of Luke Cage and watched it for a while with his head slightly tilted. Yes, he was dead. This time for real.

* * *

Shades watched how Mariah topped off the bottle of whisky and poured the drink into two glasses. She handed him one and they clinked their glasses.

"We finally got rid of that troublemaker." Her lips bent into a smile.

Shades wished that smile made him feel something, but there was nothing but that ever-present void. The elimination of Luke Cage had been more than just the removal of a rival. The world was freed from one more freak. He did this for her, everything he did was for her. It had been people like Cage that had taken her away from him.

His fingers tensed around the glass when he thought back to that fateful day, to that man who stabbed his forked hand right through her back and stomach, to the other who'd created the distracting smoke, to...

He took a deep breath and sipped from the glass, feigning a smile. "It's done."

"Yes." Mariah put her glass on the table, stepped closer to him and looked up to him. She laid a forefinger against his cheek and slowly pulled it to his chin. He held her glance for a moment, that was filled with more joy than he'd ever seen. With a hand he raked through her dark hair, before he roughly pushed his lips against hers. She bit his bottom lip. Her hands glided underneath his shirt and she pushed him backwards, until his back hit the wall.

He desperately tried to feel something. This moment should have filled him with warmth, but the void was eating every feeling away. He grabbed her hips and turned her around, pinning her against the wall of the living room. Her fingers unbuttoned his pants and their kisses became more severe while he pulled up her dress and entered her roughly. She moaned, flinging her arms around his neck as he lifted her. She wrapped her legs around his waist. Again he slammed inside her, again and again, without feeling a glimmer of the warmth he missed so much and that had been so naturally ten years ago.

"Oh Hernan," Mariah panted in his ear. "You're such an animal." She bit his ear and buried her nails in his neck.

He grunted by way of an answer and squeezed his eyes when he saw her face. Her beautiful smile made him gasp for breath.

 _Norah._

His throat was squeezed. His hand glided across Mariah's thigh, which wasn't as soft and smooth as Norah's had been, and her moaning wasn't mixed with quiet chuckles, like Norah had sounded.

With a whimper he came, which was luckily disguised by his moaning. He trailed kisses down Mariah's neck to hide his watery eyes, slowly helping her to her climax so he would be fully himself again when she was finished.

Cold and ruthless, with a soul that only knew love as a remnant of a time long past.


	4. He Will Suffer

Phobos stared in the glass that was almost empty. Her shoulders were hanging, her eyelids felt heavy. Dysphoria was pushing her down for days, actually since the minute the euphoria of their escape had drifted away.

The not-knowing had never felt so heavy.

Her world had been small the past years. Everything had been decided for her: what she was eating, how late she was eating, how her day was planned. Now, freedom was overwhelming her and she didn't know what to do. The first days they'd laughed, pulled little pranks with their powers, making sure they didn't lack anything.

But now she felt hollow. Every time she saw girls whisper to each other, she felt a jolt of pain in her stomach. Had there been friends with whom she was watching boys? Had she ever been in love? Had she kissed someone before Morpheus?

She moved her glance to the window and looked outside. It was windy. A mother walked by with her two children pressed to her sides. Again a vibration went through her chest. Where did her parents believe she'd gone to?

Questions like these were torturing her endlessly. She was continuously confronted by the gaps in her memory, by the fact she didn't know who she was.

Phobos was just a code name. It didn't mean anything.

 _She_ didn't mean anything, to anyone but the three people who sat around this table. And they felt just as lost as she did. She could see it in their eyes, hear it in their voices. Their lives lacked a goal, except for finding out who they'd been and who'd done this to them. But they couldn't just go to the authorities and ask for help. None of them trusted anyone outside their small group.

"In Harlem someone like us is killed." It was Athena's low, somewhat hoarse voice which attracted her attention. She turned around the folded newspaper so they could see the article.

Phobos scanned the text. She froze on the inside when she read about the bulletproof Luke Cage who'd committed himself to fight crime in Harlem. Was he killed because his powers made him a freak or did the local gangs just hated his interference?

She looked up to Erebus to see what he was thinking. As if it was smoke, a black glow spread over his blue irises, a sign he was angry.

"It takes a lot to kill a bulletproof man," he muttered. "Maybe we should go to Harlem, find out who's behind this. There's a chance it isn't just a gang, but someone who's targeting our kind and knows how to find the perfect bullet for an impenetrable skin."

In silence Phobos looked him in the eye, even though she'd already made her decision.

She craved for a goal in her life, for something to focus on. Tracking and taking down a murderer sounded as meaningful pastime.

"Okay," she decided. "We'll go to Harlem. Let's see if his murderer has ties to whoever has locked us up for years."

* * *

A few days later they entered Harlem's Paradise. On the street there were whispers telling them one _Shades_ was behind the murder of Luke Cage, but there hadn't been enough evidence for the police to make him pay.

Phobos looked around in the atmospheric nightclub, that was cloaked in a blue and purple glow. On a stage a threesome was playing soul music, making the audience dance. Erebus nudged her elbow and bowed toward her.

"Up there on the gallery."

As low profil as she could, she looked up. A man was leaning on the railing with both hands, looking down. A confident grin was drawn on his face, his whole appearance breathed arrogance. His eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. _Shades._

It had to be him. No one else would wear shades on this time and place, other than to honor his name. Phobos swallowed. The thought that someone who'd recently killed a man others considered as a hero was looking around here as if he was a king, made her blood boil.

"What a hypocritical asshole," she grunted. "One can see that even from here." Her eyes shot through the nightclub, looking for the stairs. "He will suffer."


	5. Lifelike

Mariah stood next to him. Her hand slipped underneath his black jacket and settled on his lower back, her grasp as always a little compelling. He didn't look to the side, keeping his eyes focused on the hall below him. Harlem's Paradise was always crowded, but after Cage's dead he had been worried that people no longer wanted to visit the nightclub. It was no secret that he had fired that fatal bullet, even though nobody could prove it. But he clearly wasn't the only one who was glad that the world was freed from one more freak. He might not be able to bend steel with his own hands and he would certainly die when a volley of bullets would hit his chest, but he liked to convince himself that there were also people who were considering him as a hero. He had done the community a favor.

Mariah's hand slowly glided up and down his spine. For a moment he turned his head to the fifteen year older woman. She caught his glance and showed a suggestive smile, but she couldn't keep his attention for long. He felt dissatisfaction, as if he had lost his goal now Cage was dead. Unrest was always gnawing at him if he didn't know what to do, threatening to break down the wall keeping his memories away from him.

Suddenly there was a gunshot – and another one.

People started screaming, were running to the exit. Immediately Shades pulled his gun from his waistband, went to stand in front of Mariah and pointed the gun at the door. He would blow up the brains of the first one who would step through it.

"Take the other stairs," he told the woman.

She didn't raise a protest and walked away from him, controlled. Just like he, she was raised among violence, she had felt the steel against her head during more than one occasion.

Shades' finger curled around the trigger. Below him, people were still leaving. Between him and the stairs to the hall were two doors with at least four guards in between, so there was only a slight chance that the shooter would get past them.

Suddenly black smoke came from under the door. The next moment the glass in it shattered. He fired. A woman with tattooed arms fell on the ground. A dark mist was radiating from her tattoos and Shades widened his eyes as the mist turned into a grunting panter. He stumbled backwards. Before he could fire again, a sand tornado wrapped around his hand, pulling his fingers away from the weapon. Something cold, something dark glided around him, and before he could blink an eye, two people were standing in front of him. There was no time to respond. A sharp pain shot through his skull and he grabbed his head. The walls in his mind crumbled down. Memories wandered through his head; her white wedding dress turning red, her pale face, her quivering lips as they whispered: "Don't let me go, my love. Never let me go."

The memories dragged him along, pushed him into a dark hole, a cold prison where was nothing but her distressing absence.

"Stop!" A voice broke through his thoughts. A hand disappeared from his shoulder. Slowly his sight returned, his world got back its color. Panting he stared forward, still caught in the moment, in the blackest day of his life.

And then he saw her, as if she had just slipped out of his memories.

She stood right before him, her hand pressed to her chest. A dark haired young man stood beside her.

"What's going on?"

"I..."

Shades gasped for breath. She was standing there. She was really standing there. Touchable. Alive. His heart shrunk – a heart of which he hadn't even known that he still possessed it. "Norah..." he stammered. He wanted to say so many more things, wanted to do so much more than just staring at her. Touching her, pulling her close. But it felt like his body was petrified.

Somewhere in the back of his mind his brain found its voice back. _It can't be her. She's dead. She died right before your eyes. Ten years ago._

The first years after she had passed away, he had gone through a lot of moments like this – being fully convinced that he saw her. But never so close, never so lifelike.

"No," he said with a gravelly voice. "You can't be here."

He touched for his waist, to his gun and remembered that it was on the ground. This couldn't be Norah, she was dead. It had to be a freak – one that could dig into his head and was able to take someone else's shape. His fingers found the knife on his hip and he drew it. Anger raged through his body; anger because someone had stolen her appearance and was defiling her. His fingers curled around the hilt and he lashed out.

To her stomach. So that she would bleed to death, just like Norah had done.


	6. Farces

Right before the knife could cut her shirt to pieces, Erebus intervened. He pushed her backwards while a black smoke was surrounding them and a moment later the substance had pulled the weapon into the darkness.

Dazed, Phobos stared forward. She still didn't understand what had happened. As always when she was using her gift, she had struggled through the wood of memories, looking for deep fears, for unresolved trauma's.

And all of a sudden, she had seen herself, wearing an ivory wedding dress covered in blood. No longer paying attention to the man, she lifted the hem of her shirt. Her fingers stroked the scar of which she had never remembered its origin.

This was the first thing she discovered about herself. She squeezed her eyes for a moment, lowering her shirt again. None of this was making sense. Had this Shades guy been with her? She could still feel his panic, his pain. Still she didn't believe that she shared a past with such a cold blooded murderer. Had he powers too? Could he arm himself against her searches by creating memories involving her?

But he had called her Norah, just like Morpheus.

Not only did that mean that Morhepus had really known things about her that he had always kept from her; it also meant that this guy really knew her.

"What do you want us to do? You ordered us to stop." Erebus nudged her shoulder to pull her out of her musings. She shook off the thoughts. Shades' wrists were crossed on his back, being held together with glass cuffs made by Psamathe. He would be able to break them by hitting them against the wall, but there was quite a chance he would cut his own wrists and bleed to death.

"He knows who I am," she said in a raspy voice. "I was in his memories."

Shades yanked his face back when she lifted her hand, but her fingers curled around his sun glasses nevertheless and she pulled them away, revealing his confused eyes. She saw someone who didn't know what to believe, who probably thought that she was pulling a trick on him. A feeling he had given her too a moment ago.

Now she however noted that his confusion was sincere.

As soon as he seemed to realize what the look in his eyes was telling them, his glance became cold and his face harsh. He said not a single world; instead he kept staring at her as if he wanted to force her to look away.

Although she could feel the man's darkness, the many deaths that were on his conscience, she felt no fear.

"Then we'll take him. We'll make him talk and then we'll kill him," Erebus said on a growl. He moved his face closer to hers and whispered: "He killed Athena."

She snapped her head to the side. The man had sucked up all her attention; not for a moment she had thought about her friend. A few meters away she was lying in the doorway, a bullet hole in her forehead, the tattoos on her body stilled forever. Her shoulders tensed.

When she turned her face back, there was not the slightest hint of remorse in his dark eyes. Flippantly, he lifted the corner of his mouth. "You can't blame me for trying to protect myself against four of these... beasts."

She gritted her teeth. If his mocking was showing her one thing, it was that he wouldn't use their shared history to get out alive.

"Take him," she spoke in a dark tone to Erebus. "Before the cops are all over this place."

"To where?"

She shrugged her shoulders. None of them had a place of their own, nobody knew this place at all. "He probably has a villa somewhere."

"A penthouse, actually." Again his lips curled up. "With a view that you'd love."

She clenched her jaws. There was something about his attitude that was really getting on her nerves. Despite the fact that he was cuffed and surrounded by three people with supernatural powers, he still created the impression that he was the one who was in control. It could be a farce, but there was also a chance that he had a sinister back-up plan.

"Where?" she asked him shortly.

With a blank face he summed up the address, without taking his intense gaze off her.

"Fine." With a grunt, Erebus turned the man around so he could no longer look at Phobos. There after they both disappeared into the shadows.

Phobos turned around, massaging her temples where pressure was building up. She glanced at the body of her friend.

"We have to get her out of here," she muttered. "Whoever locked us up all those years; I'm sure they have eyes everywhere and will discover where her body was found."

Psamathe nodded. By moving her hands, she let a sand tornado spin around Athena's body, lifting her from the ground.

Now they still needed to leave this place without being seen – with a sand tornado while the police could storm inside any moment. And the only person who could have made them invisible, had just disappeared.


	7. Dead Brides

Shades had been transported in more pleasant ways. His skin was burning like someone was pressing coals against it and he could barely breathe. It was hard not to pull himself loose, but he was too careful to do such a thing. Who knows what would happen if that guy only managed to transport a small part of him. He had watched Harry Potter; shredding his body all over Harlem wasn't exactly on his bucket list.

Although he had never expected to feel relieved to stand with a freak in his living room, he was glad that their shadow trip was over. With his wrists still cuffed behind his back he sat down on a chair and studied his attacker. It was a young man; or more likely a kid since he didn't look much older than 20. His dark hair was messy, giving him a distracted look. Around his left eye was a large, black stain like someone had blackened his eye, although some stars were in it. Whether it was paint, a tattoo of something different was hard to say.

With his glance he followed the guy as he marched through the room. Standing still in front of the windowsill he lifted a picture frame. The only one he had.

"So you really know her?" The boy turned around.

Shades pulled a face as he saw that his uninvited guest had lit a smoke. He hated the smell of cigarettes inside his house. "Norah is dead. I have no idea who that freak is who has stolen her appearance."

If he was honest, he had to admit that he wasn't fully convinced that Norah was truly dead. He had seen the scar on her stomach, he had seen how the memory had hit her too. But at the same time he knew better than anyone that this might all be a joke. Maybe someone had just send her to fuck with his brain. He had more than enough enemies.

"So... what now?" Shades asked. Actually he wanted to go back to his club to see the damage. Disappearing all of a sudden surely wasn't good for business. Part of him wondered why the hell he cared about his business right after the reunion with his dead bride, but soon he concluded that thinking about _anything_ was better than that.

"We will wait until Phobos and Psamathe are here."

He lifted the corner of his mouth. "They can merge with shadows too?"

"Psamathe will create a sand storm to get here unnoticed."

"A sand storm. Right, that's very discreetly."

The boy looked at the picture in his hand again. "You're her brother?"

Shades leaned back in the chair, trying to sit comfortable despite the cuffs. "Am I holding her like I'm her brother?" He smirked as the jaws of the kid tensed. "Is she your girlfriend?"

He put back the picture frame and glanced through the high windows.

"I assume that's a yes," Shades concluded. "Well... this is going to be interesting."

His silence was annoying, although he knew he would have done the same if he had been in his shoes. He concentrated on his cuffs again, trying to get his hands out. All it caused him, were sore muscles.

"Ah, the ladies have arrived," he noted as the door flew open. Annoyed, he watched the door fell on the ground. "Now there was really no need to ruin my door."

Mesmerized he watched how the dead girl floated through the air and landed on his couch while sand was circling around her. Then his attention was distracted by the kid who walked to Norah and pushed the picture in her hands.

"You were right. He knows who you are."

Norah stared at the picture for at least a minute, then she looked up to him. Her face was pale. "Who am I?"

He cast a mocking glance at the boy who protectively laid an arm around her waist. He probably already sensed the answer. "We were lovers. You were my bride. My dead bride, as you have noticed."

Her eyes widened. The picture frame slipped out of her hands and fell to pieces on the ground.


	8. Stupid Ideas

Phobos couldn't believe her eyes.

That guy – that had been her lover? She had wanted to _marry him_? Some... gangster?! Many days she had wondered what kind of person she had been, but the thought that she would have hung out with _that_ kind of people had never crossed her mind.

Nor the idea that she could love such a man.

"You're a murderer," she answered coldly.

He shrugged his shoulders. "And you and your friends aren't? You didn't exactly come to me to give me a lapdance..."

Her jaw tensed. What an asshole. And he didn't even seem happy to see his "old lover" again.

"We're leaving," she said to Erebus. She didn't want to spend another minute with that dick in one room. If dark secrets like that were obfuscating her past, she doubted she even _wanted_ to know more.

"Where do you want to go?"

"I don't care." Briefly she glanced at Shades' face. She tried to ignore it, but his distant attitude hurt. She had expected people to react differently on her return – and especially the one she had loved. "I just need to get away from him."

"You do wanna keep him alive?"

She wanted to look him in the eye, but his sunglasses prevented her from doing so. "For now," she answered. In case she changed her mind and wanted answers; it would be stupid to put the only one who could provide her these in a grave.

"We can also lock him up in the cupboard and use his house," Psamathe suggested. "He seems to be the type of person who wants to keep business and his private life separated, and I doubt he has a lot of friends."

"No," she muttered. Shades still created the impression that he was the one who was in control and his arrogance was getting under skin. She didn't want to be around him. She just wanted a back-up plan.

"I have a second house," Shades said. "Outside the city. In case I need some peace. Which doesn't happen very often, I got to admit that."

Suspiciously Phobos squeezed her eyes. "Why the hell would you want to help us?"

"Not them. You." He shrugged. "Why don't you take off my cuffs, so I can clean myself up and take you to dinner. Then we can catch up. Maybe I'll even trigger some memories."

She pursed her lips. "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard."

"Only because you don't remember my other ideas, honey." A smirk crossed his face.

She inhaled deeply. What the hell was she supposed to do with this? Seeking for help, she looked at Erebus. His dark glance told her that he wasn't happy with the proposition at all. But what if it had been about his past, about his memories?

"Fine," she gave in. Her curiosity prevailed. If she wouldn't take the invitation she would probably regret it later – although it remained to be seen if she wouldn't regret _this._ She walked towards him, grabbed the remote controller from the couch and broke the glass cuffs with a few firm ticks. "Go clean yourself up."

He rubbed his wrists and attached his glasses to his shirt pocket. His eyes were holding hers, an arrogant smirk curling up his lips. "Why don't you join me in the shower hmm?"

She sent him a deadly glare, making him chuckled.

"Okay, too soon. I get it." He winked and got on his feet. "We'll get there, in time."

With clenched teeth she watched him leave until he disappeared behind a door.

"You really think this is a good idea?" Erebus asked. He sat down on the armrest of the other couch, stroking Athena's hair.

"I have no idea," she muttered.

Although she knew it wasn't. Having dinner with a gangster who had killed her friend just a few hours ago, sounded like an extremely ridiculous plan.

She however didn't change her mind.

Yet.


	9. Motivation

"Be careful," Erebus whispered. "You want me to stay close?"

Phobos shook her head. "No, I'll be fine."

Shades was getting on her nerves, but her intuition told her that she didn't have to fear for her life. Not yet, at least.

"Okay." Hesitating, he looked at her. Then he stroked her cheek with his thumb, giving her a kiss.

Something he had never done before. Phobos felt the urge to push him away; this weren't the kind of games she liked to play, no matter what horrible things Shades had done. She wasn't some kind of object he could claim, no matter how much he considered this new guy as a threat.

Her ex-fiance.

She gave him a cold glance before she aimed her attention to Shades. He was standing next to the door, his shoulder leaning against the wall. A smirk crossed his face, as if he thought that Erebus' attempt to kiss her was funny. That arrogant grin had a nasty effect on her; it caused an itching underneath her skin and despite her former concerns she now _did_ feel the need to press her lips on his. She however doubted Shades' smirk would fade – he would undoubtedly be satisfied that he evoked such a reaction at all.

Without saying anything to anyone, she walked out the door. She heard Shades' footsteps right behind her. There was a knot in her stomach, which felt much tighter when they were standing next to each other in the elevator. The doors were closing. He stood a little too close; his elbow was touching hers and it took all her willpower not to pull her arm away. There was no doubt that he was trying to provoke her and she kept staring forward stubbornly.

The silence was depressing. Phobos heard her heartbeat resonate in her head. When the bell rang, she almost jumped.

Shades chuckled softly. "Deep in thoughts?"

She shrugged her shoulders and left the elevator. His voice had sounded neutral, even friendly. As discreetly as she could, she wiped her clammy hands to her pants, although she was sure nothing escaped his attention. She stood still for a moment to see which direction she had to go, and Shades nodded to the right. Walking past a row of cars, they went deeper and deeper into the parking garage. In front of a shiny, black car Shades stood still.

Phobos' eyes followed the smooth curves. It was a nice car, she had to admit that.

"It's a Chrysler 300C," Shades told her. His voice sounded careless, as if he possessed a dozen of these cars. "I bet you don't remember. You used to love cars, you were a true speed demon." He flashed her a wide grin.

Phobos didn't answer. Her hand glided across the paint. She tried to feel something – a longing, proof that what he told her was true so she would find back a piece of herself. But she felt nothing but his obvious presence.

She opened the door and sat down on the seat. Shades started the engine, laying his hand against the headrest of her seat as he looked over his shoulder, rolling the car backwards.

From the corner of her eye she looked at him as they left the parking garage. He looked relaxed, even normal, and now she took the time to study his face she had to admit that he was definitely good looking. Regarding his looks alone, she understood why she had felt attracted to him.

"And? You like what you see?" He showed her a grin, giving her the feeling that she wasn't the only one with abilities and that he was well trained in reading other people's minds.

She turned her head away and stared out of the window. Still she couldn't fully believe that she had agreed to have dinner with a murderer.

Shades didn't insist on a conversation. When they arrived at a classy restaurant, he did open the car door for her and laid a hand on her lower back as they walked towards the building. Inside he shoved back her chair very gentlemanly; her silence didn't seem to bother him at all.

With a nod he took the menu cards from the waitress, ordering two glasses of red wine. Then he shoved the card towards her.

Phobos eyes wandered down the list. The names of most dishes didn't ring a bell at all.

"As an appetizer, you would have chosen oxtail soup."

That was reason enough to choose another meal, but she nodded nevertheless. She was here to find answers, not to have a good night. Taste could trigger memories, so it was worth a shot.

"Okay. Ox tail soup it is."

She looked around as they waited until the waitress returned to take their orders. It was a building with large windows that were surrounded by dignified curtains. Chandeliers were hanging on the ceiling, burgundy table clothes were draped across the tables.

"Did we do this often?" she wanted to know. "Having dinner in fancy restaurants?"

"We usually took a quick bite at a snackbar when we ate outside. You never felt very comfortable around expensive restaurants."

"Why? Did my family lack money?"

He lifted the corner of his mouth. "On the contrary. You're parents were loaded with cash. I was the poor one in our story."

She frowned slightly at his words as she thought about the club he possessed and the luxury penthouse they had just come from. "Well, as it seems you have achieved a great deal thanks to my dead."

The look in his eyes was cold as he looked her. "Yeah. There's no better motivation than revenge."

Phobos didn't look away and thought of Morpheus.

Yeah, he had a point.


	10. Memories

The way she kept looking at him after he had told her that there was no better motivation than vengeance, showed him she agreed. Which wasn't that hard to understand. After all, someone had murdered her, locked her up and wiped her memories. She was no longer the same woman with whom he had wanted to marry, but he could still see the old Norah. Her distant attitude reminded him of their first dates, calling up the same longings.

"How long ago?" she asked after a while. He had prolonged the silence on purpose – after all, she was the one who was looking for answers. Of course he had questions himself too – he wanted to know who the hell had done this to her, but he doubted she could provide him those answers.

"Our marriage? Ten years ago."

"Ten years..." Sighing, she massaged her temples. "How old am I?"

"Thirty-three."

Frowning, she looked at him. "You too? You don't seem the type of guy who wants to marry on such a young age."

He grinned. "Everyone who'd get the chance to marry you, would do it Norah."

She rolled her eyes.

Bowls of soup were put in front of them. He watched how she picked up her spoon and realized she held it in a different way than before. Her mother had always cared a lot about etiquette, but as it seemed she had forgotten about that too. It was crazy, to find out that all those little details were still buried somewhere deep inside his brain.

"How did we meet?"

He tasted the soup and let the substance roll through his mouth. Too salty for his liking. In the meanwhile he tried to decide how much insight he wanted to give her into their past. It was very tempting to... sugarcoat some things – or simply leave some things out. Back then, she had forgiven him. Whether this traumatized version of her would do the same, remained to be seen.

"You moved to Harlem in your senior year. Your father grew up around here and missed it. The family of your mother was involved in the oil industry, had made quite some money, and your father had done well for himself too. Actually he was quite an example for us street kids." He lifted the corner of his mouth, then he thought about her mother.

Yeah, she had been a real bitch.

"Your dad wanted you to go to a public school instead of a private one, which your mom preferred. So you ended up in the same school as me. One day we were working on this project together, we had some fun, I asked you out and well, it turned out we'd liked each other since the moment we'd laid eyes on each other."

The lies rolled over his lips easily.

It was so far from the truth that he didn't even feel guilty. That was how things should have gone – if he hadn't been such a total jackass. Now he had the opportunity to change that – so why wouldn't he?

"So... then we were together for... five years?"

He nodded.

The way she looked at him, showed him that she was just as enamored with him as she had been the first time. Not at all.

In silence they ate their soup. When his bowl was empty, he shoved it away. "So what do you still remember, Norah? Where have you been all those years?"

She looked pensively at him for some time. Clearly she didn't trust him yet. In the end she shook her head. "That's none of your business. Tell me more about me. What are my parent's names? Do I have siblings? Close friends?"

Shades answered all her questions patiently. Her eyes were holding his glance the whole time, as if she was trying to catch him in a lie. He however was honest about everything – about everything but their first encounters.

* * *

Shades felt exhausted when they returned home. The memories he had called up hurt – something beautiful had been destroyed and even now she turned out to be still alive, he knew he would never get it back. She was traumatized – and in all honesty Shades had to admit that he had no idea how to deal with that. Perhaps it was better to let go of the illusion that she would ever become his Norah again. She was someone different now – he was someone different now.

And still he knew deep inside that he wouldn't give her up. Not after ten years of mourning. Not after everything he had gone through, after everything he had done – for _her._

They were silent during the ride home, both deep in thoughts. To his relief he discovered that her friends had at least taken the dead girl off his couch. What they had done with her, didn't matter.

"And now?" Norah gave him a questioning look.

"Now I'm going to sleep. Your friends can use the couch. Or leave. I don't care."

"And me?" She tilted her head a little.

He swallowed at the sight of the look in her eyes. He had seen that many times before – always when she was taking off his clothes. He felt the longing to lay down with her flame up.

"You can sleep wherever you want," he still answered in an indifferent tone.

Then he turned around and entered his bedroom. He didn't bother to look at his phone – he had no interest in seeing how many missed calls he had from Mariah. He took off his clothes, got underneath the blankets and shoved a hand underneath his hand. Staring at the ceiling he tried to make sense of everything that had happened today.

He didn't get very far.

The door was opened and someone slipped inside. Although it was dark, he recognized her contour effortlessly. His breathing faltered as she crawled into bed next to him. Man – what the hell was this? His imagination had to be running away.

"I thought... maybe this calls up memories." Suddenly her fingers glided across his chest – long caresses, touches he had missed so much.

"You sure as hell call up memories in my head," he answered in a hoarse voice.

She snuggled up to him, placing a hand on his cheek. Her lips came closer, his heart was racing in his chest.

But right before she kissed him, a gruesome pain shot through his skull.

"I'm sorry baby," she said softly, her voice soaked with mockery. "But it weren't made-up memories I was looking for. I know you lied to me when you told me how we met, so I guess I have drag those memories out of your head myself."


	11. Being Late

**I'm going to add a couple of chapters about their past, let me know what you think of it. (:**

 **. . .**

 **THE PAST**

Norah had refused to be brought to school by her mother. Being dropped off by your mom at your first day of school – she would look like a freshman instead of a senior. She wanted to make a good first impression. It was bad enough that she had to go to a school where everyone knew each other for years. She had moved to Harlem this weekend, so she knew no one. There had been nobody who could have given her a ride.

She didn't have a driver's license herself. Her mother had lost her little sister due to a car crash and she didn't want to see Norah behind the wheel before her 21th birthday. There had been many fights about it, but every discussion ended in her mother in tears so that Norah gave in time and again. Once she went to college, she would make her own rules.

And so, Norah had been condemned to the bus. Whether it was because of her nervousness or her sleepy head; she had taken the wrong one, which she only realized after fifteen minutes. A bystander had explained the route back, and even though Norah had left the house almost an hour too early, she was still fifteen minutes too late when she reached the empty schoolyard.

Well – it wasn't completely empty. A few feet in front of her walked another student, hands deep in his pockets, his jeans so low that she could see a large part of his blue boxers. Nora quickened her pace so she was walking next to him, slightly panting because she had ran from the busstop to the school. Talking to strangers had never bothered her, so she got over her insecurity quickly.

"Hi!"

The boy turned his head to the side, as if he hadn't noticed her before. For a moment she thought to see annoyance crossing his face, then he lifted the corner of his mouth, his eyes wandering across her body.

 _Boys..._ she thought, feeling frustrated. _They're all the same._

"I'm too late. On my first day here. And I have no idea where to go." Opening the front pocket of her backpack, she took out the timetable and shoved the paper under his nose. "Look. I gotta go to that classroom. I've Spanish."

 _"Yo los llevaré."_ He winked.

Norah bit her bottom lip. She had always found Spanish speaking men sexy, and this Hispanic guy was suddenly a lot more interesting.

"That is, if I get something in return." A mischievous grin crossed his face.

Questioning, she raised her eyebrows.

As they walked towards the entrance of the school, he casually laid his hand on the small of her back. "Can I take you out?"

Although Norah liked his immediacy, she knew better than admitting that. "You always ask girls out before you know their names?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever your name is, it doesn't make you less beautiful."

Norah hated the pinpricks she felt in her fingers. She didn't want to feel flattered – he was a typical slick. "Bring me to my classroom first, then we'll see." Her voice sounded cold.

He chuckled softly and made a mocking curtsy. "Whatever pleases you, milady."

She rolled her eyes, but her lips curled up. "Why are you too late anyway?" she asked him. His hand still rested on her lower back, with which he gently forced her to the left. It was strange, but she no longer felt nervous, like she had taken over some of his nonchalance.

"I just have some trouble waking up. Once I'm sleeping, there's no alarm clock that can wake me up." He shrugged his shoulders. "Although I think I'm fucked this time; my excuses start to sound unrealistic. And why are you so late? You wanted to make a lasting impression?"

"That sounds better than admitting that I took the wrong bus, huh?"

He smirked.

Norah caught herself liking his grin; it made his eyes light up. It was hard to tell what type of guy he was. He was obviously a charmer, but there definitely was also a bad boy vibe and something told her he could be very annoying when he didn't like someone.

Suddenly he brought his face very close to hers. "We gotta get up these stairs," he whispered in her ear. "If you look forward instead of at my handsome face, you might save yourself the embarrassment of falling."

Norah wished she could rip off her cheeks when she felt them glow. She pushed her awkwardness to the side. "I thought that you'd be charming enough to catch me."

"Nah, I'm not the knight in shining armor type of guy." He increased the distance between his hand and her back, now only his thumb was touching her. Slowly, it glided up across her spine. Norah couldn't suppress a shiver, causing an even wider grin on his face.

She pretended she didn't care and aimed her attention at the steps. Falling would indeed be a downer. "So... you got a name?" she asked when the silence was getting on her nerves.

"Why? You hope to impress your classmates when you tell 'em I asked you out?"

She snorted. "If there had been so many girls who wanted on a date with you, you wouldn't have tried so hard to persuade me to go with you."

He took away his hand completely. "Hot girls are scarce around here. Especially when you're not really into black."

They left behind the stairs and went through a door.

The boy pointed a little to the side, at about five doors away from them. "That's the Spanish classroom. I gotta go in here." He nodded to the second door to the right.

Norah nodded. "Thanks."

His eyes met hers briefly, then he turned around and walked towards the door without saying another word.

Norah hadn't reached her own door yet when she heard another one open. Sensing that it was the same guy, she turned around. Indeed; it was the same boy from before who was standing in the hallway again.

She walked back. "They don't let you in?"

"Nobody believed me when I said I was showing a new girl the way. Mr. Gunderson believes I better stay away from his classes at all if I don't value them enough to be on time."

"Well, I wasn't the reason you were late."

He shrugged his shoulders. "You could have been. If you'd needed to go to the other side of the building, I woulda taken you there too."

His eyes told her that he spoke the truth. Not because he was such a helpful soul, but because he couldn't care less about being late. Still he had helped her to get rid off her nervousness _and_ he had shown her the right classroom.

"Come." She headed to the door of his classroom, knocked and opened it. Looking over her shoulder, she noticed that the boy hadn't walked with her. He raised his eyebrows questioningly, his mocking grin was making her blood boil.

But in the meantime she was standing in the doorway while thirty pairs of eyes were staring at her. There was no way back and she cleared her throat. "Uh – hi. I wanted to tell you that I'm new around here and that that guy over there –" she cursed the fact that he hadn't told her his name and pointed over her shoulder –"brought me to the right classroom. I understood you didn't believe him, so... I wanted to explain that he spoke the truth. I would feel bad if he was punished for helping me out."

"Mr. Alvarez is punished because he's _always_ too late and his excuses are starting to bore me."

"But this time he spoke the truth," she lied. "It was my fault. I was so nervous I was walking around the school like a headless chicken."

With a sigh, the teacher looked at her. Eventually, he seemed to realize that he was wasting his time by this discussion and nodded. "Fine. Send Mr. Alvarez in."

Nora smiled and returned to the boy. "Well, Mr. Alvarez," she said in a mocking tone. "As it seems, I've saved your ass. We're even now. If you want a date with me, you gotta try a little harder."

Suddenly, he raised his hand and raked his fingers through her dark hair. "Oh, I'll get that date." His glance wandered to her lips. Holding her breath, she wondered for a moment if he was going to kiss her. Then he playfully tugged her hair and gave her a wink.

"I'll see you around." He turned around and walked towards the door.

This time, the door stayed close.

Norah headed to her classroom as well. By now she had really missed half of her class. Hopefully her Spanish teacher would respond just as amiable.


	12. Creeps

THE PAST

Norah knocked on the door before she opened it. The teacher, a woman with wild, red curly hair looked a little disturbed. Not angry – rather like she was a little confused now her routine was interrupted.

Norah cleared her throat. "Hi. I'm sorry I'm late, I got lost."

"Ah, you must be Norah." The woman showed her an understanding smile.

Her shoulders relaxed as she nodded. "Yes, I am."

"Take a seat, please."

Norah looked around and counted three empty seats. Quickly she judged the three people next to the empty spot. One was a very fat guy with sweat stains all over his shirt, the other a girl who was persistently staring at the table top, creating the impression that she wasn't looking forward to company; and finally there was a dark guy who didn't look unfriendly.

She walked towards him and put her bag on the ground.

"Unless you want to become the laughing stock of the school, you better take another chair," he said in a low voice.

Norah frowned; because of his directness and his message. He looked athletic and friendly, it was hard to imagine that he was being bullied.

"I'll be fine," she answered and she sat down next to him. "What's your name?" she asked after taking her books from her bag.

"Darius. And yours? I assume Mrs. Brown introduced you a minute ago, but I wasn't paying attention." He showed her a crooked smile.

"Norah." She glanced at the cornrows in his hair, the sides he had shaved. He actually looked pretty cool. "So... why am I going to be a laughing stock now?" she whispered, meanwhile peeking at his textbook to see on what page they were.

"Because I'm the pariah of this school." His voice was calm, as if he didn't care that much.

"But why? I've seen stranger people around here." She thought of Alvarez.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Long story. Let's say I trusted the wrong person."

Norah looked pensively at him, but understood that he wouldn't share his life story right after they had met. Furthermore it wasn't a bad idea to pay a little attention to the teacher, since she had already missed the first half of class.

* * *

The second class she spent next to Darius as well. She actually liked the guy, he was funny, smart and friendly. At lunch, she decided to take her chances.

"You got any friends you can introduce me to?" she asked as she walked close to him after leaving the classroom. "Don't feel like sitting there all alone."

With a sigh he stood still and looked her in the eye. "You're a sweet girl, Norah. For your sake it's better if you stay away from me, especially outside the class room. I mean it. There are some sick bastards walkin' around here."

Nora squared her shoulders. "I'm not the type of girl who turns her head away when someone is bullied. If things are really that bad around here, they aren't going to like me anyway."

He snorted. "What do you think you can do? You aren't exactly the Hulk. You're gonna learn to look the other way very quickly." He held her glance. "You're a pretty girl, Norah. Maybe they'll leave you alone – stay away from them. Please."

He walked away.

Sighing, Norah started to look for her locker. This was just great. Where the hell had she ended up if people treated each other like this?

After she had dumped her books in her locker, she followed the other students to the lunch hall. Her eyes wandered across the hall, although she didn't know for who she was looking – for Darius or Alvarez.

It was Darius who she found at first. Luckily he wasn't alone, he was sitting with some others in a corner. Some were laughing, most however looked around skittishly. Norah lifted her back pack a little higher and walked towards them, finding a spot close to Darius.

The others looked at her with wide eyes. It was a weird mix of people and there was a strange atmosphere, anxious, as if they were only hanging out because they were afraid to be alone.

Darius heaved a sigh when he saw her. "This is Norah. She likes to play Mother Teresa."

"Hi Norah! I'm Ola," a girl said with a strong Russian accent. She had a white skin that was just as pale as her hair. Nora was startled when she saw the red irises of the girl.

"Wow, I didn't know albino's really had red eyes." Red stains crept upwards her neck as soon as she heard her own words. "Shit, sorry," she said quickly. "That eh – that was rude."

Ola showed her a friendly smile. "Don't worry, I'm used to it. I'm not born with it, but..." Her voice trailed off, then she shrugged her shoulders. "It doesn't matter, this is no subject for our first talk. You're new, right?"

"Yeah."

"And I already told her that she should go to the other side of the hall, but she got shit in her ears," Darius grunted.

Ola chuckled softly. "She's a rebel. I can see it in her eyes."

"Well well... freaks," a deep voice sounded. "Who's gettin' us food today?"

Silence. Almost everyone stared at the table top, although Ola and Darius didn't lower their heads. Norah looked to the side. A tall, broad shouldered dark boy placed his hands on the shoulders of a scrawny kid with large glasses.

He looked around and his eyes landed upon her. "Hey, we got a new freak."

Suddenly Norah felt hands on her shoulders as well, squeezing compelling. Pulling away from his grasp, she looked over her shoulder angrily. She was met by the grinning face of a boy who chased shivers down her spine. _Creep._

"Norah's a little lost," a familiair voice sounded. Roughly, the boy behind her was pushed to the side. This time fingertips were trailing up and down her neck, his touch very lightly. "This one is mine."

"Excuse me?!" Norah snapped, glaring at Alvarez. A smug grin crossed his lips. He leaned into her and whispered in her ear: "If you wanna like it around here, you better come with me." She shivered as his hot breathing brushed her ear.

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" she hissed "Go buy your own food, you tramps."

A deadly silence fell.

Footsteps sounded. People stepped aside, making room for a bony young man. His eyes hollow, his face sunken in, stubble covering his cheeks. He looked older than he had to be.

"Get up."

The voice was just a whisper, but it felt like the whole school could hear it. Everyone had stopped talking.

Her chair was shoved back. The boy who had put his hands on her shoulders first, pulled her on her feet.

"Get your hands off me," Norah grumbled, pulling herself away from him.

The skinny guy stood still across from her. The dark look in his eyes made her cringe. Slowly his glance wandered across her body. He took the hem of her blouse between his fingers and rubbed the fabric. He took a deep breath, as if he was judging her perfume.

"You live large, huh? You feel better than us?"

Norah refused to look away from his cold eyes. "I feel better than anyone extorting others. Whatever the amount of numbers on their bank accounts."

"We're not all blessed with rich daddies who are stuffing us with food. You never learned to share?"

"I don't mind to bring you a peanut butter sandwich tomorrow if you ask nicely."

She had hoped that someone would chuckle about her words so that the mood would feel lighter, but nobody moved a muscle.

He raised his hand and raked his fingers through her hair. When he stepped closer, a spicy fragrance surrounded her. He obviously had his own ways to get himself expensive perfume.

"Is it true? Are you Hernan's sweetheart?"

Her eyes shot to the side, to Alvarez. Apparently his first name was Hernan. He gave her an intrusive look, was clearly trying to persuade her to say yes.

"No."

She heard him sigh.

"You have a boyfriend?"

She turned her attention back to the creepy guy in front of her. "I do."

He lifted the corner of his mouth, as if he knew damn well that she was lying. "Break up with him. I'll send someone to pick you up tonight. Wear something nice."

He turned around and walked away, his disciples quickly following him.

Hernan however kept where he was and looked briefly at her. She raised her eyebrows.

"You have no idea what rat hole you just put your hand in," he said softly. "Trust me, you would have been better off with me."

For a moment he kept her glance, then he shook his head and turned away from her.

A little overwhelmed, Norah sank back on her chair. Everyone avoided her glance, even Darius and Ola.

"Who the hell was that?" she asked.

Nobody answered.


	13. Theories

THE PRESENT

It felt like there was a hot sludge gliding down her longues, blocking all oxygen. Sharp stabs tortured her head. In panic she let go of the memories – in such a physical way that she fell back on the bed. Panting, she kept lying there a little longer.

What the hell happened? She hadn't only been stuck in Shades' memories; it had felt like their minds had blended. As if he had pulled her own memories to the surface. Consciously or subconsciously.

Next to her she heard Shades groan. She had no doubt that he had felt the same pain. Never before she had been plagued by such a horrible headache; she was close to screaming. It felt like her memories were violently digging themselves in again.

For a long time she could barely move. She was just lying there, in the bed of a murderer. Staring at the ceiling. At least an hour went by before she managed to sit up. She felt mangled, like she hadn't slept in weeks. One of the most effective torture methods.

Shades looked up to her. When their eyes met, he said: "I guess things didn't go as planned?"

"They did," she lied. "I got back some memories. About or first meet. It's a little different than you claimed."

He shrugged his shoulders. "Didn't thought it would hurt to polish the rough edges of our love story a bit."

Norah. So that was who she was. Who she _really_ was.

She rubbed her face. The horrible stabs had disappeared, but it still felt like her whole skull was bruised. "So even back in school you were a bully. A follower. I'm not surprised."

"My survival instincts never let me down."

"You're a coward."

"That's a matter of perspective," he answered indifferently.

Norah decided to put it to rest, she already sensed that discussions with this guy could go on forever. "Who was that creepy guy?"

"Clive."

The moment she heard his name, a freezing cold spread across her skin. She flinched. "Did he do something to me?"

Shades looked away. "Yeah."

She bit the inside of her cheek. If a man like Shades avoided eye contact, it must have been really bad. "What did he do?"

Sighing, he sat up straight. "Some memories better remain buried."

"That's my call."

"Well I'm not going to tell you. You'll come across them during your memory hunt."

Her jaw tensed. This was uncharted territory for her, she didn't know how digging up her own memories by using his brain would affect her. What if she got stuck in his head, or he in hers – who could tell? She didn't know this guy and the few memories she had retrieved about him, left a bitter taste in her mouth.

It was clear he only cared about himself. She could see him being intrigued by the idea of displacing her soul, so he could take over her body to have her powers. Apart from that, she felt exhausted right now; she had no idea how bad this was for her health. But still... This might be the only way to discover who she was...

But not tonight. Now she needed rest.

Still the name 'Clive' kept sticking to her skin like a row of stickers, of which she knew it would only cause her pain if she pulled them of. "Can you tell me more about Clive?"

"I'd rather not," he grunted. "He's dead. That's the only thing that matters."

She lifted an eyebrow. "Did you kill him?"

"Yeah," he answered without blinking an eye.

Tilting her head, she studied his face. It wasn't hard to see the seventeen year old boy from her memories in him. The lines in his face were harder, his jawline more masculine and his eyes colder, but everything else was the same. Even his haircut. "Are you sure he's dead? You believed that I was dead too."

He didn't answer immediately. His eyes glided thoughtfully across her face. "You think he's behind the organization who wiped your memories?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "It has to be someone who hated me. Did he?"

"Absolutely," he answered confidently. "But he didn't hate me any less, especially not after killing him. It makes no sense if he kills you but not me."

"Maybe that was still on his to do list." She sat up a little straighter, folding her legs underneath her. Despite the fact that she didn't trust him completely, it was easy to talk to him. "They were turning us in some kind of super soldiers. We escaped before the project was finished, who knows what his plans were. He might as well have send me after you to kill you, once he controlled my brain."

He remained silent for a while.

It was far-fetched. Most people just stayed dead.

"What are the odds that he somehow survived?" she asked.

"As likely as the chance that you survived. That is just as impossible."

"Not impossible at all, as it seems," she muttered, massaging her temples. It didn't matter. Whether Clive was the head of the organization or someone else; they were after her anyway.

She froze when his hand glided across hers, squeezing her fingers. "He won't find us tonight. Try to get some sleep."

Norah pulled back her hand. If she hadn't seen the memory of their wedding, she never would have believed that she would marry such a man. She didn't want him to touch her, right now he was still a bully. A stupid follower.

But he was right. It was better to get some sleep; her whole body was aching because of the intense experience of an hour ago. Knowing that she would have a better sleep here than on the couch or the floor, she rolled to the furthest side of the bed.

"Don't touch me," she warned him.

The next morning however, she felt his breathing against her neck and a heavy arm was draped across her side.


	14. Trust

That night Shades didn't sleep at all. Partly because he was afraid that Norah's return would turn out to be a dream the moment he woke up, partly because the wheels in his head kept turning. So much had happened today and so many things had been said... Again and again he relived the moment he saw her, the same emotions getting a hold of him. That had been the reason he had snuggled up to her when she was asleep, despite the fact that she'd told him not to. But after all these years of mourning and missing her, he just needed to feel the warmth of her body and wrap his arms around her. And since she didn't want to be touched when she was awake... well then she left him not much of a choice.

However, the moment she woke up she rolled away from him, casting him a dark glance. Nevertheless a grin crossed his face. He'd always found her smoking hot when she was angry. "C'mon baby, you look at me like I was trying to strangle you. I just wrapped my arms around you when I was asleep. My body missed yours, I can't help it."

He sat up straight. The blankets fell down until they laid around his waist and her eyes glided across his chest and stomach. His smirk increased when she failed to hide her admiration completely.

"I'm going to take a shower," he said. "How about calling up some memories there too?" He wiggled his eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes. "Maybe I once was stupid enough to fall for your charm, but that doesn't mean it will happen again. I'm not a naive teenager anymore."

"You never were," he muttered. "At most at your first day of school. You've lost that habit very quickly."

Sighing, Norah stared past him. "You really think there's a chance Clive is behind all this? Or that he's at least involved in it? I have no memories of him, but his name makes me shiver."

Shades wasn't surprised. What that guy had done to her, had ripped up her soul.

"What if this is your fault? What if my so-called dead and all those experiments were just a way to have revenge on you? If you hadn't killed him then – then..."

"Then you would have killed him."

Overwhelmed, she stared at him. "No – I wasn't like that."

Shades' jaw tensed. Some people might regret their first murder, but he didn't. Clive deserved much and much worse. "He made you like that," he finally answered in a grunt.

The memories about Clive gave him the feeling that a layer of ice was creeping across his skin. By now he had spent a great part of his life among criminals, but none of them managed to turn his heart into an ice cube. Leaving the bed, he headed to the bathroom without saying another word, taking a hot shower which hopefully scorched every thought about that asshole.

* * *

After the shower he felt a little calmer. He found Norah and her friends in the living room, who still looked skeptically at him.

"So... what's the plan now?" Norah asked.

He sat down on the couch. "Depends on your goal."

"Staying alive is a good start," she snorted. "Just like not falling in the hands of the ones who did this to us."

"So first we have to find out who's behind this." He took a while to think. "I gotta go to Harlem's Paradise, assessing the damage and give a statement. I'll let them make a couple of identikits of random people, you go to my other house and stay low until I know more. I'll send Comanche with you."

"Comanche?" Norah repeated with raised eyebrows.

"Darius."

Her face expressed even more confusion. "You two are still in contact? How? You were like... enemies!"

"Long story, don't have time for that. Stay inside, I'll talk to the cops and Comanche and send the last to you."

And he needed to talk to Mariah. The moment she learnt about his feelings for Norah she would turn into a nightmare, but until then he wanted to use her influence and money.

"You're fucking serious?" Erebus looked at Norah in disbelief. "We're really going to trust that fucker? Handing him all the strings? He _killed_ one of us! He's hunting people like us!"

"And people like us are hunting _us,_ " Norah shot back. "It was a gifted person who killed me on my wedding day. I have no doubt they're responsible for your so called deaths too." Her fingers clenched into a first. "Whether it's about gifted or normal people; we can't trust anyone."

"But we can't trust him either!" Erebus persisted stubbornly.

Norah's glance slid to Shades. "No, we can't trust him either."


	15. Suspicion

"What do you mean, Norah's alive?" With wide eyes, his friend stared at him.

"You heard about the attack on Harlem's Paradise?"

"Yeah, who didn't. Two bodies, I heard."

"It was her, with three friends."

As unlikely as everything had been yesterday; right now he enjoyed the bewilderment on the man's face. Since the moment that Norah and he had gotten together, the three of them had been inseparable – and this time for good. Even in his darkest hours Comanche had been on his side, despite the shitty way Shades had treated him in high school; when they went through life as Hernan and Darius.

Comanche's eyes were about to pop out of their sockets. "I don't get it... How can she be alive?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Someone brought her back to life or someone tricked us all, making us believe that she was dead. She's been locked up for years, lost her memory... She has supernatural abilities now..."

The glance in Comanche's eyes became softer, turned into one of pity. "You miss her, I get it... But –"

"I'm not making this up!" he snapped, annoyed because his friend was acting like he'd lost his sanity. "After ten years I'm not suddenly starting to fantasize about her coming back from the dead. That makes no sense. Just go to my house, you'll see that I'm right. I got other things to do. Take her and her friends to my house close to the woods."

Comanche could only stare at him. "You're serious, huh?"

"Yeah."

Comanche kept staring. When he saw no madness in Shades' eyes, his shoulders seemed to relax a bit. "What powers does she have? Doesn't she remember anything at all?"

"I'm not sure what powers she has. Once she touches someone, she can dig into his memories and call up trauma's or fears. Yesterday she relived the day we met – you and me both. Her first day on our school, I mean. But she can't remember anything else, she didn't even know her name."

Comanche shook his head in disbelief. "Damn... Like that girl hadn't suffered enough..."

Shades kept his glance. "She's going to ask questions about Clive. Don't tell her anything. It's possible that she will find out what happened when she's digging into my memories, or in her own, but if she doesn't get the details clear it's for the best. I don't want her to go through the same pain again."

His friend nodded; he absolutely agreed.

After these words they said goodbye. Shades went to the police station first to file a report. Usually he wouldn't have bothered to do that, he'd spent a little too much time here, and not out of free will. However, this time he didn't want anything to point into Norah's direction so he had to come up with some profile he could line out for the cops.

To his relief, Misty was nowhere to be seen. She didn't exactly have a soft spot for him; there was no doubt that she would have doubted his words. And with good reason. With her absence he could quickly finish the job; he gave three random descriptions of people who shared no similarities with Norah and her friends, by which he feigned so much arrogance that he was sure they would dismiss all other descriptions as nonsense. He couldn't say much about their intentions; he just told them they had eventually knocked him out with a bottle of wine, and that they were gone when he woke up.

Now, time to meet with Mariah. That would probably be the toughest conversation of today.

* * *

"Where have you been all day?" she called out. He had entered the now empty nightclub to assess the damage, but that could have been worse. He wasn't surprised; after all, the whole attack had been about him. They had wanted to kill him, and something told him they would have succeeded if it wasn't for Norah.

"I was home." He leaned into her to kiss her, feeling surprised by his own repulsion. The power she had, had always turned him on and she was interesting company, but now he'd seen Norah again it felt like he'd pressed his lips against a slimy frog – one that didn't change in a beauty of noble birth. "They knocked me out, I needed a few hours of rest."

Her suspicious glance glided across his face. "That's hard to believe."

He lifted the corner of his. "Some people just look fabulous, whatever happens to them."

She rolled her eyes before she narrowed them. "Suspects?"

"Some gang, dark men, hid their faces... They were looking for something. Very purposefully; they didn't waste time on anything else. As long as I laid down, they didn't give a shit about my presence."

Shades wasn't the type of person who was easily bothered by nervousness, but the suspicious look in her eyes as she studied his face gave him the creeps. She took a step forward. Her dark eyes drilled into his. Lifting her hand, she stroked the collar of his suit.

"You've been with another woman," she concluded in a cold voice.

Shades cursed her alertness. He said nothing, there was no point in lying. She would know.

"What? You think I wouldn't notice? I can smell her."

Shades doubted that; Norah had not worn any perfume and they hadn't been _that_ intimate. Unfortunately.

He didn't avoid her glance. "I didn't sleep with her. I didn't even kiss her."

"Then who is she?"

"An old friend I bumped into on my way home. Hadn't seen her in years."

"A friend?" she huffed, as if the thought that there had been a time in which he'd had a social life was a joke. Well – he couldn't really blame her. The only person he trusted was Comanche, and in Mariah's eyes he was nothing but his former cell mate.

"Yeah. It doesn't matter who she is." He wasn't in the mood to kiss her ass, telling her she was the only one his heart was beating for. He might be devious, but he still had a bit of an ego and he was sure she wouldn't believe him anyway. "You got any idea what the intruders were looking for?" he asked her in an attempt to direct her attention in another direction.

"I heard they were gifted."

He rolled his eyes. "The moment people panic, they see those freaks everywhere. They were normal people. With a mission. So what were they looking for, Mariah? Something you kept from me? Or Cornell?"

"If it was because of Cornell, the secret went with him into the grave."

"Figure it out!" he snapped at her. "That retarded cousin of yours is still causing us mountains of problems. It feels like you've received some damned inheritance!"

After these words he strode away, hoping his so-called anger was enough to keep her thoughts away from Norah.


	16. Not Worth The Loss

**THE PAST**

In disbelief Hernan stared at the gigantic white house rising in front of him. It was a typical American villa; white walls, grey roof, large pillars on both sides of the insanely large entrance. It was a small palace. Man, her parents had to be filthy rich. He finally understood Clive's interest in her – up to now it was the only house that could compete with that of his own family. He had probably already known about the new student with the rich parents, her big mouth had just rushed things. Hernan wondered what Clive's intentions were: did he believe it was time to have a girl on his side now they were seniors? Some sort of queen standing aside him when he was playing tyrant, one who had the same means? Or was it their money itself he was after? Kidnapping the girl would make some nice money – maybe they even wanted to extort her whole family routinely.

White pebbles and small bushes flanked the light grey pavement meandering through the lawn. Everything breathed beauty and wealth, and in all honesty Hernan felt unworthy to walk this path.

When he finally reached the door, he rang the bell. In the glass he could see a reflection of himself. He felt like a costumed monkey in the grey suit he was wearing and tugged on the tie that seemed to choke him. He hated Clive for sending him to this place. It was humiliating to take a girl he was interested in to a date with someone else.

The door swung open. A sour looking woman looked up to him. Her piercing blue eyes seemed to see right through him, concluding these ridiculous clothes didn't suit him. His whole demeanor probably still screamed 'street kid'.

"Yes?" she asked, sounding very aloof while she tilted her head a little. Raising a hand, she raked her perfectly manicured fingers through her red dyed hair.

"I came here for Norah," he said. "To take her on a date."

Her plucked eyebrows were lifted higher. "Well well... No introduction before you take my daughter with you?"

He bit the inside of his cheek. He had never dated anyone, how should he know what was normal? Plus, he was nothing but a delivery boy right now. Shrugging his shoulders, he said reluctantly: "Hernan."

She scrunched her nose as if his name gave her a bad taste. "Well, _Hernan,_ Norah told me nothing about a date and I can't imagine she's interested in a dolled up brat like you."

Completely bewildered, Hernan stared at her. Damn, was Norah really related to this vixen? Norah herself had made friends with the biggest freaks of the school, but something told him that her mother would have wanted to drown them like some damn kittens. Maybe _she_ should date Clive.

"Could you still ask her to come to the door?"

His hands were getting clammy. As if Norah would ever come with him. But she had to; if he disappointed Clive he wouldn't get a single shot the next month. As discreetly as he could, he wiped his fingers to his borrowed pants. Nobody would wear it after today anyway; Clive would probably set them on fire to stress what he would never get in his life.

Hernan was met by one more disdainful glance before the bitch closed the door. He sighed. Great. What now? He walked back a few steps, looking upwards. Maybe he could throw a rock to her window, like they did in the movies? He however counted more than ten windows, so which one would be hers? And what size of stone _wouldn't_ break the glass?

Before he had a chance to try, the door was opened. Norah leaned against the door frame, still wearing a dark jeans accentuating her hips and a shirt showing less cleavage than he would have liked.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. Her eyes glided across the suit he was wearing. "And why the hell do you wear _that?"_

He swallowed his shame because proper clothes looked so ridiculous on him and squared his shoulders, hoping to look more confident. "I'm here to pick you up for your date with Clive. I will be your driver."

She stared at him in disbelief. "You are his _driver_?!"

"Put on something classy. Clive likes elegant dresses. And he hates to wait."

She raised her eyebrows. "You seriously think I'm going with you?"

"Don't be so fucking difficult!" he snapped before he realized. "You think I'm here to have fun? Just be happy he invites you over for dinner instead of something more horrible!"

Her eyes rested into his. Suddenly she nodded meekly, a look of compassion in her eyes. Frustrated, he turned away from her. The last thing he wanted, was her _compassion._ Fuck – he felt so fucking embarrassed, following all Clive's orders like a good puppy. He had never felt so emasculated. This morning he had wanted to hit on this girl himself, but Clive had simply claimed her and now there was nothing he could do but hope that he would lose his interest in her soon. Although his own window was shut anyway, after this humiliation.

Norah had turned around, leaving the door ajar. Hernan sauntered across the path and stared into the pond as he waited until she was ready. Luckily it didn't take long; barely ten minutes later she closed the door behind her. It was unbelievable how quickly she had transformed into a real lady. She had put up her hair, a few strands curling down and landing on her shoulders. The dress she was wearing looked like liquid gold, streaming like a waterfall across her curves. His throat felt dry and he swallowed. His glance moved further down, across her long legs, lingering on her delicate feet that were adorned with golden strappy shoes.

"And? Classy enough?" she asked, her voice drenched in mocking. "Offer me your arm."

"He will like this," Hernan muttered, holding out his arm so she could hold it. He enjoyed the feeling of her fingers around his arm, wishing he could have taken her to a restaurant himself. Not that he could afford more than a hamburger in a snackbar...

"Why are you doing this, Hernan?" she asked as they walked down the lawn, towards the large gate.

Hernan didn't know what to answer. Apart from Clive, nobody knew about his situation at home and he wanted to keep it that way. That was reason enough to acknowledge his defeat; now he had seen Norah's house, he would never ever take her to the shithole he lived in.

"You didn't strike me as a guy who let others walk over him," she pushed, not accepting his silence.

"I don't," he answered mortified. "I do things for Clive, he does things for me. It's like doing business."

She laughed softly, the sound laced with disbelief. Still he enjoyed her laughter so much he stood still, suddenly afraid that it would be the last time he would hear it.

"Listen babe. If you don't want to turn this into a habit, you keep your head down tonight. Don't challenge him, don't ask questions; pretend that you're scared and boring and maybe he'll lose his interest in you."

She held his glance for a while. "And if he doesn't? Who is he, Hernan? Why can he terrorize the entire school just like that?"

"You wish his power was limited to the school," he said. "His family runs this neighborhood. They can just sent a couple of cops to your house who will arrest your parents and send them to prison without a trial or even a reason. They are the definition of power, Norah, and I hate it, I fucking hate it but that's how things are around here and if I – or whoever – try to struggle away from his grasp, he's going to squeeze his hands and I'd be stone dead. Or someone I care about." He gritted his teeth. He hadn't want to tell her all those things, he didn't want to expose himself this much, especially not to a girl he only knew for one day. "It's simple, Norah. He wants to share his power with you or he's gonna abuse his power to make you do things you don't want. And take this from me: fighting him will get you nowhere." He stared at the ground. "It's not worth the loss."

His breathing faltered. In silence he cursed himself for letting his walls down so easily around her. Tearing his arm away from her he quickened his pace, heading for the car that was parked on the side of the road, Clive waiting in it.


	17. Power

THE PAST

Hernan opened the back door for her. Norah smoothed her dress and sat down. She couldn't believe she was actually going through with this. Having a date with a guy who was feared by the whole school. Even by someone like Hernan.

Quietly he closed the door, walked around the vehicle and sat down behind the wheel.

A cold hand with perfectly trimmed cuticles landed on her knee, calling up her attention. Reluctantly, she cocked her head to the side.

"Hello Norah," Clive said softly. "You look beautiful."

"Thanks," she muttered. Clive himself was wearing a marine blue shirt above a dark jeans. His scent was a strange mixture of hair gel and a sweet perfume, making her feel sick.

The car started to move. Norah's eyes shot to the rearview mirror, meeting Hernan's glance. It wasn't a reassuring, encouraging glance. He rather looked tormented, like the awkward silence in the car was leaning heavily on his shoulders. Quickly, he looked away.

Luckily it wasn't a long ride, and Norah felt relieved when she got out of the car. She wouldn't allow him any closer tonight.

Clive seemed to think otherwise, in an inviting gesture he held out his arm. Not wanting to make a scene, she grabbed his arm. He led her inside. Norah felt the urge to look over her shoulder to glance at Hernan one more time, but not doing it felt safer.

Romantic music greeted them as they entered the dim restaurant. There were no other guests. Was dinner so expensive in this place that others couldn't afford it? Or had Clive made sure that nobody would bother them? The nervous way the kitchen staff moved, convinced her of the latter option.

Clive moved back her chair before he sat down across from her. Since their greeting he hadn't said a single word to her, and neither had she. If the evening would go on like this, it would be nerve racking but nothing she couldn't handle.

"I'm happy you wanted to have dinner with me, Norah," Clive spoke, giving her the nasty feeling he had heard her thoughts.

"You didn't give me much of a choice."

She bit the inside of her cheek. Shit. She really needed to think before she spoke; she should listen to Hernan's advice. Not looking at him, asking him no questions – she was sure smart answers didn't belong to that category.

"What do you mean, Norah? Didn't Hernan ask you nicely?"

She swallowed, suddenly her throat felt dry. However drinks hadn't been offered to them yet. For some reason she didn't want to cause trouble for Hernan.

"He did," she said quickly. "But I just felt... overwhelmed."

"Why did you? I invited you at school, didn't I?"

As subtle as she could, Norah wiped her clammy hands to her dress. His intense glance made her sweat. His eyes were imperviously dark, convincing her he was able to do things that were far more gruesome than she could ever imagine. "I thought you were just pulling a stunt on me," she muttered.

He tilted his head. "Now why would I do that?"

Norah clenched her fists. His smooth voice almost made her puke. "Why are you like this?" she burst out.

Surprised, he raised his eyebrows. "Am I like what?"

"Oh come on! If I want to see people act, I'd go to the theater! The whole school is afraid of you. The whole _neighborhood_ is afraid of you. Where is that obsession coming from? That obsession to scare everyone you meet?" She looked him straight into his eyes. "What are you trying to hide?"

His lips curled into an amused smirk. "I got nothing to hide. I just have... a natural authority. People like to be told what to do. If not, you wouldn't have been here, right?"

As if to stress his words, he gestured a waitress to come closer. Immediately two glasses were put at the table, which were filled with wine. Norah stared at the glasses. She wasn't anywhere close to her 21st birthday, but the owner of this place seemed to hold more fear for Clive and his family than for receiving a huge fine for selling alcohol to underage people.

Norah didn't know what to answer – she wasn't even sure she _wanted_ to answer. She already regretted a lot of things she had said; she had been anything but discrete. Her glance wandered outside. Hernan was standing close to the entrance, leaning against the car, hands deep into his pockets. As if he could feel her glance, he suddenly looked up. Confusion paralyzed her for a few seconds when their eyes met. Quickly she returned her attention to Clive, who was frowning slightly.

"I think we should drink to our encounter," she said.

She just couldn't ignore him, or stare at the table. Somehow she needed some form of control over the conversation.

The look on his face was amused, and he lifted his glass. Norah did the same, clinking glasses. The sound echoed through the silent room.

"You do this with all new students?" she asked. "Taking them to expensive restaurants?"

"Only the ones who are able to offer me an interesting conversation. It doesn't happen a lot: people who dare to stand up against my boys. And certainly not a pretty girl like you."

Norah's shoulders tensed. "Why are you protecting bullies? It's disgusting."

"For many, the power they hold over others in school is the only thing have, Norah. Not everyone is born in a golden bed."

"So? You think it's noble what you do?" she shot back. Shit – what a sick bastard. Her eyes wandered off to Hernan again. If the power he had on school – only at school, that is – was the only thing he had in life... what did it say about his personal life? His family? Why did he take orders from this creep? His whole demeanor had told her he was disgusted by it, so how could Clive control him this much?

"I have noticed you can't keep your eyes of mister Alvarez." Clive's voice dragged her out of her thoughts. "Would you like him to join us?"

"No, it's fine," she muttered. She couldn't see how that wouldn't make things even more awkward.

"I insist. I take the wishes of my girl serious."

 _My girl?_ Norah was too overwhelmed to say something about it.

"Call him in. I will give him the opportunity to eat a tenderloin for the first time in his life." A humiliating smirk crossed Clive's lips.

Norah already felt a pang of pity in her stomach. It was clear Clive only wanted to humiliate Hernan. Hoping he would be kinder if she did what he asked, she got up and headed for the entrance.

Hernan looked up as she opened the door. She dropped her eyes.

She wanted to leave this place, she wanted to go back home.

Still, she said softly: "He wants you to join us for dinner."


	18. Leashed

**THE PAST**

Hernan gritted his teeth.

He didn't want to go in. Hell, he didn't want to be here at all, he just wanted to get that fucking syringe and go home. He however wouldn't get it before Clive was satisfied, so he had no choice but to enter the restaurant. A waitress was shoving a chair to the table, arranging everything so the three of them could sit there. In silence, Hernan sat down. Although he was staring at the white tablecloth, he could _feel_ Clive's arrogant smirk.

"Are you not going to say anything, Hernan? No thank you because you don't have to wait in the cold?"

"It wasn't cold outside," he grumbled.

"What did you say, Hernan?"

He wished the asshole would stop repeating his name the whole time like he was some retarded child. "Nothing."

"I thought I'd taught you better manners. Norah is a lady, Hernan. Don't make me feel ashamed of you."

Hernan's cheeks were burning. Well, _he_ definitely felt ashamed! "Sorry," he murmured. His own voice made him cringe. Oh, how he wished he could vanish in the air. Even dying had to be more comfortable than this! He peeked aside to Norah, who looked away the moment their eyes met.

Clive shoved the menu towards him. "Pick a dish. For once in your life you won't have to spend all your savings; I will pay."

Hernan knew it wasn't his fault that he was born in a family with no money, and also that it wasn't Clive's own merit that caused him to wallow in luxury. Nevertheless, his shame was increasing with every second passing by, as if it _was_ his fault that he was living on the streets and that he was following Clive like some damn lap dog because that was the only way he could think of to keep his mother alive. Tears were stinging in his eyes because life felt so unfair, because an asshole like Clive could get anything he wants while Hernan had to humiliate himself to make sure he could sleep at night.

Suddenly something caressed his leg, and a moment later Norah's hand rested upon his knee, giving him a squeeze. The sympathetic gesture was so unexpected that a shiver rolled through his body. He kept his eyes aimed at the menu, although he lacked the concentration to actually read the words. If Clive would find out about this... he wouldn't be surprised if he would cut off Norah's hand right at this table.

Despite the risk, or maybe it was _because_ of the risk, her silent resistance hit him hard.

"I'll go for the lamb chop," he said, doing everything possible to keep the vibration out of his voice. He closed the menu and slipped his right hand into his pocket. The other disappeared underneath the table too; he laid it across Norah's. With his thumb he softly caressed the back of her hand.

"Excellent," Clive answered.

Something in his voice made him pull back his hand; he had a feeling the boy could see right through the table. Awkwardly he shifted in his chair; the silence was crushing. Norah took away her hand as well, although it felt like her warmth stayed behind on his knee.

"So you'd rather been here with Norah yourself, am I right?" Clive asked.

The mocking in his voice didn't escape Hernan's attention.

"Not here," was all he said.

"Of course not here. You even had to borrow a suit." He chuckled softly. "There's a lot you still have to learn, Hernan. Norah is no whore you take to a snackbar to pay for her services."

Again he gritted his teeth, his jaw started to hurt. While he clothed himself in silence again, his eyes shot to the knife next to him. Would he be quick enough to stab it in Clive's neck?

It would be pointless. He couldn't kill the man here, in this restaurant. His family would retaliate before the sun came up.

"I have nothing against a snackbar," Norah said, her voice taunting.

 _Don't do this girl,_ he thought. _Don't take the bait._

"Would you rather have had a date with Hernan?" Clive asked. Hernan heard the threatening undertone; his ear however was trained so well he doubted Norah would notice.

"I like to date someone who _asks_ me to go out with him, instead of ordering me to do so."

She had balls – he had to give her that. The arrogant smirk curling around Clive's lips told him he wasn't the only one who found her boldness attractive.

"So if I ask you to have dinner with me again Wednesday, that would be more to your liking?"

"At this point, I would tell you no. Would you accept a refusal?"

The silence that fell was so intense Hernan barely dared to breathe. He wished he was still waiting outside. Sure, he would have worried about Norah, but now he felt this constant urge to protect her while there wasn't much he _could_ do.

"Probably not," Clive answered.

"So then it won't be a question."

"What do I have to do to change your mind?"

Norah leaned over the table, her elbows planted on the surface while she looked Clive straight in the eye. "This is awkward. You have the social skills of a potato – I'm sure there's not one girl who'd be sitting here for fun."

"Fun is overrated," Clive answered. The boy was way too insane to care about her criticism. "I'm sure there's something I can help you with. Some wish I can grant."

She was silent for a while. Hernan felt that she was looking at him and he risked a quick peek to the side.

"Let him go home."

"Did I chain him? He's free to leave. Don't you wonder why he doesn't leave? He's close to wearing a leash. Voluntarily, that is."

This time, his eyes shot to Clive. His heart was raging in her chest.

He didn't want her to know.

But that was precisely why Clive couldn't wait to expose his secret.


End file.
